Skip Rizzo, Lisa Regina, and the Storytelling Turn in Trauma Technology

A clinical psychologist who builds virtual environments for trauma research and treatment, and a filmmaker who has spent more than a decade collecting veterans’ stories, sat down together on camera. That conversation is worth examining because it brings two very different approaches to a shared human concern into the same public forum.

The Lisa Regina interview with Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo on Heroic Episodes Live is the centerpiece of this article. It is also a convergence point for several distinct strands of work: Skip Rizzo’s research and technological innovation; Lisa Regina’s veteran advocacy and storytelling; the contributors to the 2026 Routledge volume Post-Traumatic Growth and Film/Video-Based Therapy: Cultivating Resilience Through Storytelling and Media Psychology; and my own work in FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™ and media psychology. These projects intersect, but they are not one program and should not be presented as though they are.

Heroic Episodes Live: Lisa Regina in conversation with Dr. Albert "Skip" Rizzo.

The episode opens with Lisa Regina describing the series' purpose: a weekly space for veterans, first responders, advocates, and artists. Regina introduces Rizzo as a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California who runs the medical virtual reality lab and as the lead creator of BRAVEMIND. Barry Morgenstein, a photographer whose published work includes the book Rock and Soul, with a career spanning concert and studio photography and years of photographing veterans and law enforcement, joins her. The Heroic Episodes team page lists him as Photographer, while Regina introduces him in the interview as an ambassador for A Write to Heal and associate producer of Heroic Episodes. In introducing Rizzo, Regina acknowledges Dr. Joshua L. Cohen for making the connection.

Heroic Episodes Live is co-hosted by Lisa Regina and Barry Morgenstein, streams Thursdays at 7 PM ET, and is published through the Heroic Episodes YouTube channel and Regina’s professional networks. The series’ broader context is available at Heroic Episodes.

An Interview That Sits Between Two Approaches

The interview belongs within Heroic Episodes Live because that series places veterans, first responders, advocates, and people working on veterans’ behalf into conversation. Rizzo’s appearance brings a clinical and technological perspective into the same space as Regina’s storytelling and advocacy work.

That does not make the interview a treatment session. It does not make Heroic Episodes a clinical intervention. Instead, it makes the conversation useful for readers trying to understand how veteran mental health can be discussed across research, clinical practice, public storytelling, and creative work.

The title of this article uses “storytelling turn” as my editorial framing. I am not claiming that the interview established a new field or that the participants share one theory. I am identifying a point of contact: Rizzo studies and develops immersive systems for clinical applications, while Regina builds public narratives and production opportunities around veterans’ experiences. The relationship between those approaches is a question for careful examination.

Who Is Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo?

Dr. Albert “Skip” Rizzo is the Director of Medical Virtual Reality at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, commonly known as ICT; a Research Professor in the USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC; and also affiliated with the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. USC’s reporting on his work and ICT’s own profile both emphasize his long-running role in medical virtual reality and virtual reality therapy. The four units should be kept distinct: ICT is the research institute, the Keck School of Medicine of USC is the medical school where his research professorship sits, Keck Medicine of USC is the health system, and the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is a separate academic unit.

His work has examined the design, development, and evaluation of virtual reality and virtual human systems for clinical assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation for roughly three decades. That research has extended across PTSD, traumatic brain injury, autism, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke. The larger thread is the use of interactive and immersive VR and AI to address healthcare needs that may not be fully served by traditional tools.

Rizzo’s work is therefore broader than BRAVEMIND. BRAVEMIND is one important project within a larger research program concerning medical virtual reality, clinical systems, rehabilitation, and human-centered technology.

Beyond BRAVEMIND: Battle Buddy and Sidekick

In the interview, Rizzo describes several adjacent projects that extend his work beyond VR exposure therapy. He reports that he co-created Battle Buddy, a phone app with an AI character for mental-health check-ins, coping exercises, and suicide-prevention support, and that the VA requested further research before expanding it. No independent documentation of Battle Buddy was located for this article, so it is reported here solely as Rizzo’s description in conversation.

He also describes Sidekick Platform, built with partners, as a system designed to help veterans navigate VA resources including benefits, education, housing, and vocational direction by drawing on vetted content rather than open internet sources. The VA Mobile listing describes it as a third-party app maintained by Sidekick Platform rather than by VA, made available through the VA mobile app store with a Veterans Affairs channel. In the interview, Rizzo recalls that the VA released it on July 17, but the July 17, 2026 date belongs to new features announced for the VA’s own mobile app; the VA Mobile source indicates Sidekick was VA-approved and made available later in July 2026. Rizzo reports in the interview that an initial test involved 1,047 veterans and that 93 percent said they would use Sidekick or recommend it to a friend. No published study, report, or other primary documentation supporting that figure was located for this article, so it should be understood as Rizzo's interview-reported account rather than an independently verified research finding. He also mentions Shift Coach, adapted for police, firefighters, and first responders.

What BRAVEMIND Is, and What It Is Not

BRAVEMIND is ICT’s virtual reality exposure therapy system. The project began in 2005 and continues in development. Its project leaders are Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Arno Hartholt, and Sharon Mozgai.

In trauma-focused exposure therapy, a patient works with a trained clinician to approach trauma-related memories and cues that may otherwise be avoided. BRAVEMIND extends that clinical approach into a controlled virtual environment. Specially trained clinicians control the presentation of stimuli and remain in full audio contact with the patient.

The system can include visual environments, directional 3D audio, vibrations, and smells. Its original scenarios included Afghan and Iraqi city, village, mountain, and desert-road environments, as well as situations relevant to combat medics. Later versions addressed military sexual trauma, and another version was developed for survivors displaced by the war in Ukraine.

BRAVEMIND: an overview produced by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, describing the system's design and its use of immersive technology in exposure therapy.

This overview is ICT's own description of the system, presented here as a primary-source illustration of what BRAVEMIND is and how it is used. Its narration also covers STRIVE, the pre-deployment resilience-training system discussed above. Figures and claims stated in the video are the project's own and are not adopted into this article's text.

In the interview, Rizzo describes the aim of BRAVEMIND as helping a patient with PTSD systematically return to and confront difficult emotional memories that are often avoided. He explains that a clinician uses a control panel he refers to as a “Wizard of Oz” interface to mirror the patient’s story in real time by changing the time of day, adding people, or introducing sounds such as a jet passing overhead, all at a pace the patient can handle in a safe, controlled environment. He also says that BRAVEMIND is not a replacement for clinical expertise but a tool clinicians use, and that he does not view trauma treatment as a single approach for everyone. These interview details align with the broader ICT description already cited and are included here as Rizzo’s own account in conversation.

BRAVEMIND is not FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™. It is a clinical, clinician-delivered exposure-therapy system used in clinical and research settings by trained professionals. FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™ is my named framework and body of scholarly work. Related work through Your Digital Storytelling Project is educational, creative, and consultative rather than clinical. Film, VR, and AI are not therapy by themselves.

The Evidence Behind It

According to ICT’s BRAVEMIND project documentation, the system has been examined across VA, Department of Defense, and university-based clinical test sites. The key published trial is Difede, Rothbaum, Rizzo and colleagues’ 2022 Translational Psychiatry randomized clinical trial, “Enhancing exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a randomized clinical trial of virtual reality and imaginal exposure with a cognitive enhancer.”

That publication found no significant overall difference in efficacy between virtual reality exposure and prolonged imaginal exposure; both produced comparable clinical improvement. It also reported a significant interaction with baseline depression: virtual reality exposure performed better for participants with co-morbid major depressive disorder, while prolonged imaginal exposure performed better for participants who were not depressed. The trial also tested augmentation with a cognitive enhancer, D-cycloserine, and found no significant main effect for it. This is a nuanced interaction finding, not a claim that one treatment is superior overall.

BRAVEMIND’s clinical relevance therefore depends on trained professionals, patient selection, therapeutic relationship, informed consent, and the conditions in which the system is used. The 76% figure often cited in discussions of BRAVEMIND is different in kind from the trial outcome data: it appears on ICT’s project page, and Rizzo repeated it in the interview, as a preference finding reported by the project about what incoming patients said they would choose in advance, not as an effect-size result from the published trial. In the same conversation, Rizzo said their most recent randomized trial came close to but did not reach statistical significance on dropout, though virtual reality exposure showed lower dropout on average than traditional methods; that remark is included here as his account in the interview, not as a published significant result.

BRAVEMIND has been distributed to clinical and research sites, including VA, military, university, and other settings. Publicly available ICT materials and Rizzo's comments in the interview provide different site counts from different periods and contexts, so this article does not treat any single figure as a current definitive total. Rizzo also describes the SoldierStrong Foundation’s role in donating equipment to VA facilities that want to implement the therapy. ICT further lists ONR, TATRC, USAMRMC, the Infinite Hero Foundation, JoAnn Difede, Barbara Rothbaum, Greg Reger, Chris Meek, and Virtually Better, Inc. among BRAVEMIND’s funders and collaborators.

Where Keck and USC Fit

The USC relationships need to be named carefully. The USC Institute for Creative Technologies is the standalone institute associated with Rizzo’s medical virtual reality work and the developer of BRAVEMIND. His research professorship sits in the USC Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences within the Keck School of Medicine of USC, while Keck Medicine of USC is the health system rather than the medical school. He is also affiliated with the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Neither USC, ICT, the Keck School of Medicine of USC, Keck Medicine of USC, the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery, Heroic Episodes, A Write to Heal, Barry Morgenstein, Lisa Regina, Lynn Crandall, Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Joe Mantegna, or Ronnie Marmo endorses, sponsors, or is affiliated with me, Your Digital Storytelling Project, the Routledge book, or this article unless a specific relationship is explicitly documented.

Who Is Lisa Regina?

Lisa Regina is a survivor, advocate, filmmaker, Part 107 commercial drone pilot, and acting coach. The Heroic Episodes team page credits her with more than 35 years in the entertainment industry. She studied film, screenwriting, and educational theatre at New York University and has taught at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her contribution to the 2026 volume is documented on her chapter page, Turning Trauma into Healing: Storytelling for Recovery.

She is the founder and president of A Write to Heal, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2006. The organization uses writing, performance, and film as tools in its work with survivors of violence and domestic violence. Regina has also spent more than twelve years conducting one-on-one interviews with veterans from all branches of service and all wars. Those interviews provide source material for Heroic Episodes.

Her role in this conversation is not that of a clinical investigator studying BRAVEMIND. Her contribution is rooted in advocacy, filmmaking, survivor-informed storytelling, and the practical organization of creative projects involving veterans.

A Write to Heal and the Veterans Drone Training Program

A Write to Heal identifies two central programs in its work with veterans: the Veterans Drone Training Program and Heroic Episodes. The drone program trains veterans for FAA Part 107 commercial drone certification and describes pathways into aviation and film, while the project also describes apprenticeships for at-risk teens.

The first class launched on April 6, 2024 at Atlantic Cape Community College, and 10 veterans graduated as Part 107 Commercial Drone Pilots on September 21, 2024. The organization states that the program was supported by a $150,000 congressionally directed grant secured by Senator Cory Booker, with the Atlantic County Economic Alliance and Atlantic Cape Community College as partners, along with a separate $15,000 grant from The Patriot Fund. In the interview, Regina also reports that 23 veterans are now Part 107 pilots with seven more in training; that update is attributed to her on-air statement and was not independently verified for this article.

Regina’s work is important here because it places veterans not only in front of a camera as subjects, but also behind the scenes as participants in production, training, and collaboration. That is a different register from a therapist-administered clinical protocol. For a related argument about authorship and craft, see Film Is Storytelling. Storytelling Is Art. and this post on digital storytelling and mental health advocacy.

What Heroic Episodes Live Is

Heroic Episodes is a dramatic series in development about the bond between a traumatized Army veteran and a teenager trying to survive gang-infested streets. The project is created by Lisa Regina, with Joe Mantegna as executive producer and Ronnie Marmo as producer, as documented on the Heroic Episodes team page. Its narrative is inspired by real interviews and lived experiences of veterans and survivors of violence.

The project’s stated mission extends beyond the screen. Its production framework includes the Veterans Drone Training Program, which connects veterans with training and possible production roles. The Heroic Episodes series page documents the project’s veteran-centered production context and its festival selections, including Cinequest and Berlin Lift-Off for the related short The Shades. These are festival credits for the short film, not for the series, and not evidence of clinical effectiveness.

Heroic Episodes Live extends the public conversation around that mission. A discussion with the researcher behind a virtual reality and PTSD treatment system belongs there because it places clinical innovation alongside veteran storytelling and advocacy. The connection is contextual and intellectual, not evidence of a joint treatment program.

The 2026 Routledge Volume and Its Two Forewords

Post-Traumatic Growth and Film/Video-Based Therapy: Cultivating Resilience Through Storytelling and Media Psychology is the 1st edition of a 2026 edited scholarly collection published by Routledge. It is edited by Joshua L. Cohen, is 176 pages, carries ISBN 9781032505879, and its hardback edition was published January 21, 2026. It builds on Film/Video-Based Therapy and Trauma. Routledge’s editor biography also describes Cohen as clinically trained as a researcher and as founder and CEO of Your Digital Storytelling Project. For readers wanting broader context on the three-book arc, see The Routledge Trilogy: A Decade of Film/Video-Based Therapy in Three Books.

The Routledge description uses outcome-oriented language about moving survivors beyond symptom relief toward genuine growth. That publisher marketing language should not be treated as evidence. The book is best understood here as a scholarly collection containing different contributors, disciplines, creative practices, and theoretical perspectives.

Why the Foreword Connection Is the Real Story Here

The direct connection between the interview and the book is simple and significant: the person Lisa Regina is interviewing is also a foreword author for the volume.

The 2026 book opens with two forewords: one by Albert “Skip” Rizzo, PhD, and one by Lynn Crandall. Rizzo’s participation as a foreword author does not make him a co-author of every chapter, a spokesperson for the book, or an endorser of my organization. It does establish a documented editorial connection between his work and this volume.

Lisa Regina is also a chapter author in the same book. The interview therefore sits at the meeting point of a public conversation, a scholarly volume, and distinct bodies of work that address trauma, media, veterans, and technology from different positions.

Book callout: Read about Post-Traumatic Growth and Film/Video-Based Therapy: Cultivating Resilience Through Storytelling and Media Psychology at Routledge. The 2026 edited collection includes forewords by Albert “Skip” Rizzo and Lynn Crandall, along with Lisa Regina’s chapter. It is scholarship, not a promise of clinical or mental-health outcomes.

Chapter 15: Lisa Regina on Storytelling for Recovery

Regina’s Chapter 15 is titled “Turning Trauma into Healing: Storytelling for Recovery.” Her contribution adds a practical, survivor-informed account of storytelling work outside the clinic.

As presented on the chapter page, Regina writes as a survivor and advocate and as founder of A Write to Heal. She connects the organization’s mission to the Veterans Drone Training Program and Heroic Episodes.

The chapter’s value to the larger discussion is not that it reports clinical outcomes. It shows how storytelling and film production can function as settings where veterans work, train, collaborate, and participate in the construction of public narratives. That is different from a controlled clinical intervention, even when both conversations use words such as trauma, recovery, or healing.

Lynn Crandall, the IGM Art Gallery, and the Second Foreword

Lynn Crandall authored the second foreword to the 2026 volume. She is the volunteer director of the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery, a position she has held since July 2000, and is also referred to as its executive director in Keck reporting. The gallery is located on the Keck School of Medicine of USC Health Sciences Campus.

The IGM Art Gallery operates within the USC ecosystem, but it is distinct from ICT and from the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. Beyond those documented facts, I do not want to infer Lynn Crandall’s views about every chapter or claim that her foreword endorses my framework, organization, or services. Her contribution is editorial and scholarly, not a sponsorship statement.

Four Categories That Must Not Be Blurred

• Research evidence: Rizzo’s work at ICT, the BRAVEMIND project, and the cited clinical trial belong here. Evidence should be tied to the specific study, system, population, and conditions examined.
• Clinical applications: BRAVEMIND is a clinician-delivered VR exposure-therapy system. It requires trained professionals and should not be reduced to the idea that a headset itself provides treatment.
• Storytelling and advocacy: Regina’s interviews, A Write to Heal, the Veterans Drone Training Program, and Heroic Episodes belong here. They concern narrative work, public representation, training, production, and community or vocational contexts.
• Theoretical connections and open questions: The relationship among immersive media, embodied experience, storytelling, identity, trauma theory, and post-traumatic growth is the interpretive space. Some of the bridges I draw here are my own conceptual connections, not documented collaborations or established clinical findings.

This distinction is central to responsible media psychology. A compelling connection is not automatically a clinical conclusion.

Where FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™ Enters, and Where It Stops

I position FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™ as my named framework and body of scholarly work. I do not claim to have originated all therapeutic filmmaking, video therapy, cinema therapy, media therapy, or related practices.

My interest in this network is partly theoretical. What changes when people move between being subjects of a story, creators of a story, collaborators in production, and participants in a clinical protocol? What does a filmmaker notice about trauma, technology, and representation that a clinical system may not be designed to answer? What ethical questions appear when a story is both personal material and public media?

“The medium itself is not the therapist.” A camera, headset, script, editing system, or AI tool cannot independently create a therapeutic relationship, ensure safety, or establish clinical appropriateness.

At the same time, “We can make filmmaking more therapeutic without turning filmmaking into therapy.” That sentence describes a boundary, not a treatment claim. It leaves room to examine consent, authorship, collaboration, representation, and meaning-making while preserving the difference between creative education and psychotherapy.

What Readers Should Take Away

The Heroic Episodes Live interview is worth watching because it puts distinct forms of expertise into conversation.

Skip Rizzo brings a research and clinical-technology perspective grounded in medical virtual reality, virtual reality therapy, and the development of BRAVEMIND through ICT. Lisa Regina brings a veteran-centered storytelling and advocacy perspective grounded in interviews, filmmaking, A Write to Heal, and production-based programs. Barry Morgenstein’s presence adds a documentary and photographic perspective shaped by years of photographing music, veterans, and law enforcement. The 2026 Routledge volume places Rizzo’s foreword and Regina’s chapter within a broader scholarly collection on post-traumatic growth, storytelling and resilience, trauma and storytelling, and media psychology. Lynn Crandall’s foreword adds another editorial voice connected to the USC Institute for Genetic Medicine Art Gallery.

These relationships do not make BRAVEMIND, Heroic Episodes, the Routledge book, and FILM/VIDEO-BASED THERAPY™ interchangeable. They make documented comparison possible, and comparison is where better questions begin.

Your story matters, too. But stories deserve careful consent, accurate context, and clarity about whether the work is research, clinical care, advocacy, education, or art.

Watch callout: Watch the full Heroic Episodes Live interview with Dr. Albert "Skip" Rizzo on YouTube. More conversations with veterans, first responders, and advocates are available in the Heroic Episodes Live archive.

For readers who want to examine a current creative project, the invitation is: Bring your project. Ask better questions. Create with purpose. If you want to continue the conversation, use the contact page.

Tell Your Story coaching is creative education and Jungian-informed coaching, not psychotherapy, diagnosis, treatment, crisis intervention, or a substitute for professional clinical care, and it does not promise clinical or mental-health outcomes. Dr. Cohen is not a clinical psychologist and does not provide psychological services.